


Safety in Numbers

by ryanthepowerbottomguy



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: College AU, Fluff, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4924255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanthepowerbottomguy/pseuds/ryanthepowerbottomguy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s outside the library again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety in Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> set in a magical realism college au. this was written a while ago but never uploaded to AO3, so I figured I would do it during the scarefest. 
> 
> [prompt: darkness]

It’s outside the library again.

Ryan can see it through the windows, standing in the darkness across the street, its eyes glowing and white and tracking his movements. Ryan looks out and waves at it, smiling. It seems taken aback for a moment, shifting a little further into the darkness, before resuming its creepy vigil.

Ryan checks his watch — nearly eleven, and he heaves a sigh of relief. He makes his last rounds through the library, making sure nobody’s hiding in the stacks before he closes the place up, and oh.

Geoff is sitting at a window table, staring through the glass at the thing across the street. He’s pale, Ryan notes, and washed-out in the fluorescents. He might be trembling a bit.

“Hey,” Ryan says softly as he approaches, but Geoff jumps about a foot into the air and makes a loud noise of surprise.

He composes himself quickly, grins as Ryan leans down to kiss his messy hair. “Hi, Ryan.”

“I’m closing up,” Ryan says. “It’s almost eleven.”

Geoff pales again, darting a look out the window. “I’m good,” he says. “I’ll just stay here tonight.”

Ryan frowns. “I’m not…”

“Oh come on,” Geoff says. “You wouldn’t rat me out, would you? Swear I won’t make a mess.” He’s looking between Ryan and the figure outside almost wildly, and Ryan can’t help but see how his hands are shaking again.

“Okay,” Ryan says slowly. “I’ll let you stay here tonight. In the library. Completely alone. In the dark. Too far away from the campus police to —”

“Shut the fuck up,” Geoff says. “I just… I don’t. Want to go out there.”

Ryan looks through the glass. The figure isn’t shrouded in darkness — it  _is_ darkness, a patch of the world that’s been cut away, except for its bright, bright eyes. Ryan can’t help the way the hair on his arms prickles when he looks at it, but.

“It’s not going to hurt you,” Ryan says, not taking his gaze off of it. “It’s been here since nightfall. If it was going to hurt somebody I would have seen it.”

Geoff makes a high, inarticulate noise and curls closer down in his chair. Ryan sighs, thinking that it’s probably a good idea not to mention that the figure has been standing there for  _days_ now, appearing each night once the sun has sunk beyond the horizon. Ryan has never seen anything stick around for this long without taking any action, and it makes him wonder. It looks like it’s waiting for something to happen.

“You can come home with me,” he says. “I’ll let you hold my hand the whole way there, you big baby.”

Geoff looks up at him with big, bloodshot eyes and Ryan realizes that the other man is  _terrified_ of the thing across the street. Most students who come here have lived with things like the one outside for most of their lives (Ryan certainly has; bad omens follow him like a shadow); but Geoff, Geoff is so unused to any of this still even though he’s a grad student. Ryan wonders, sometimes, what drew Geoff here in the first place.

“C’mon,” Ryan says, much more softly, and takes Geoff’s wrist so he can pull him to his feet. “Let’s go. There’s pizza in my fridge and I think you left some beer at my place last weekend.”

Ryan turns out the lights and locks up, not once letting go of Geoff’s hand, keeping their fingers intertwined tight.

They walk quickly down the sidewalk, darting into the puddles of light that the streetlamps cast on the ground, keeping careful to stay on the other side of the road as the thing. Ryan checks periodically to make sure it’s not crossed the street, but it doesn’t move. Its eyes follow them until they turn the corner, though.

Geoff keeps his head down, pressing himself close to Ryan the whole way home, and a surge of protectiveness swells in Ryan’s chest. He pulls Geoff tight against his side, bracing Geoff against the darkness and the cold.

When they’re safe in Ryan’s building Geoff laughs, disentangling himself from Ryan’s arms and bolting up the stairs to Ryan’s third-floor apartment. Ryan follows more slowly, making sure the front door is closed tight, and he sees two shining eyes peering at him from the darkness outside.

He doesn’t say anything to Geoff. They eat pizza and Geoff has a couple beers and they make out on the couch, television flickering in the dark room, until they fall asleep. In the morning, the thing is gone, but it shows up again at the library after sundown, and Ryan stares at it for a long time, wondering what exactly it’s waiting for.


End file.
